The triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, FOCAC, currently being held in Beijing from September 4 to 6, 2024, raises a fundamental question: Do the two sides truly understand each other?
The theme of the event, “Joining Forces to Promote Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future,” is based on the premise that the two partners are moving hand in hand toward the same direction. But can we walk together without a prior agreement? The strategic partnership agreements signed by China and some African countries do not give the impression that they are on the same wavelength.
To formalize these agreements, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with African leaders such as Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria, and other leaders from Mali, Togo, Djibouti, and Comoros.
From what I observed at the summit, China’s interests boil down to four main points. First, it wants to significantly increase its exports and services to Africa, especially in infrastructure. Second, it wants to significantly increase its imports from Africa, mainly minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt. Third, China wants to better secure its funds by moving billions of dollars that might be stuck in the United States to Africa, in the form of loans.
The loans announced this week total $50.70 billion. Finally, China is also looking to influence countries and build partnerships around the world, as evidenced by its ability to bring together more than 50 African leaders in its capital. All this while China is grappling with Taiwanese sovereignty issues, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and challenges from the United States, a giant with a history of trampling weaker countries. In the long run, China hopes to strengthen its influence with a land and sea network connecting it to Africa.
It is hard for me, however, to determine what Africa’s strategic interests are beyond simply endorsing declarations and agreements, hoping to capitalize on China’s perceived generosity. In my view, Africa would have much to gain from studying China.
Take Nigeria’s agreement with China this week as an example. Let me begin with a preliminary observation. While President Tinubu is in China, Vice President Kashim Shettima, back home, led Nigeria’s National Economic Council, comprising ministers and state governors, to meet with American billionaire Bill Gates. Gates, a promoter of controversial capital and vaccines, is not widely trusted in Nigeria.
Six years ago, Gates urged the same Nigerian political elite to urgently invest in the country’s most precious resource: its people.
Gates’ main concern is the gross neglect and abandonment of Nigerians, to the point that 18.3 million children are now out of school.
Nigeria has emphasized in the deal with China that it has the largest population in Africa. True, but Gates points out that we have neglected this immense human resource, to the point that some young, educated Nigerians would rather cross the Sahara Desert, endure suffering and risk slavery in North African countries, and finally cross the vast Mediterranean Sea and face a hostile reception in Europe, than stay in their own country.
Nigeria claims that its economic reforms and those of China are “…on a similar trajectory.” I beg to differ. While China’s economic reforms have lifted 300 million people out of poverty by 2017, Nigeria has fallen further into poverty, reinforcing its reputation as the poverty capital of the world. By 2024, China has successfully eradicated extreme poverty, becoming the UN’s model for poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, Nigeria is only looking at poverty alleviation.
Rather than comparing ourselves to China on such issues, Africa should learn from them. For example, the main strategies that China has employed to eradicate extreme poverty are education, production, ecological compensation, social assistance and relocation. In Nigeria’s case, instead of expanding educational opportunities, we are reducing them, sometimes leading our young people to take out student loans to cope with rising costs. Our production is in such a disastrous state that instead of refining our petroleum products locally, we prefer to import them, thereby increasing their prices and leading to unprecedented hyperinflation.
While China’s reforms have resulted in the refinery of 14.8 million barrels of oil per day by 2023, Nigeria’s reforms have led to no refineries for the last three decades.
On the ecology front, we have abandoned our people to the devastation caused by oil and environmental pollution, as well as the encroachment of the desert. Yes, we provide welfare, but this programme is widely acknowledged as a criminal enterprise, with billions of naira found in the pockets and bank accounts of identifiable individuals, including former ministers.
Resettlement was an important strategy; rather than spending effort rebuilding old villages, the Chinese simply built new villages and relocated the inhabitants. I remember visiting two such model resettlement villages in 2017, in the remote villages of Yangguang and Xinxing.
So, instead of seeing China and Nigeria as equals in terms of economic reforms, it is crucial for Africa to learn from the successes and lessons learned from China’s experience to move towards a prosperous and sustainable future.